Matthew Whitty Skating For A Cause, Ice- Indoor and Outdoor, Some More Event News, A Few Good Reads

Matthew Whitty Skating For A Cause: Matthew Whitty will skate this year's Athens to Atlanta’s 87 miles. In doing so, he will be filmed for a Reality TV Show. His goal is to raise $150 000 for Kids With A Cause in order to build a village and school in Nicaragua.

Ice- Indoor and Outdoor: One of Andrew Love’s recent posts (Exotic Indoor Bird) addresses adaptations when a skater who only skates indoors (ice) skates outdoors (ice). I suppose we can argue the same thing for inline skating, especially here in Canada/ Toronto. Well, maybe not this year because it's not that cold and there's very little snow. It's not that bad going from indoor (roller) skating to outdoor.


Skating long track in an indoor rink is pretty sweet
I am currently in Montreal and there is NO snow here. I've been to Montreal just about every year at this time and this is the first year that I have seen a snowless Montreal in January. Mind you there was some snow in December, but thanks to some rainy weather, the snow’s all gone!


My front lawn last year- this year, there is NO snow!
I wonder what it’s like in places like Florida and California. Those of you who live and skate there, do you have the same problem? Do you skate indoors and then find it hard to go outdoors? I think if I skated there, I would have the opposite problem. You’d have to pry me away from the outdoors to go and skate indoors. Maybe training indoors in an air conditioned beautifully coated rink isn’t that bad after all, especially when it’s followed by a trip to the beach. That’s what they do those hot places, isn’t it?

Some More Event News: It is only January and the World Cup Season seems to be more and more set. Skaters are gearing up for the season opener which takes place on April 8th in Korea. You can try to keep pace with some of the news thanks to a few threads on Bont’s Message Board: 2007 World Cup Skaters?! and WIC 2007 Schedule.


The World Inline Cup in Duluth (2005)
According to this post on RaceReports.net, there’s a whole whack of races in March/ April. Some of you will be spending quite a bit of cash during that time but I know you'll be having a blast! If you want to share stories, pictures, or your thoughts on the before, during, and after the races, you can definitely contact me!


The pack rolls through a rain soaked boardwalk at the 2005 Disney Marathon
The All-Star Saturday Race & Roll is taking place on January 20th. It seems that there is some confusion with their use of the term Masters. When I think about Master skaters, I think about the speedy 35+ year old skaters like Herb Gayle, Greg Major, Bob Harwell, and the rest of the gang. The ASSR&R organizers apparently have a different definition of master skaters; master skates means experienced skaters. Guess what! You have time to register now that you know this.

A Few Good Reads: Here are a few interesting articles and posts that will help you slay the final hours of the weekend and open up the work-week for you: Aaron Arndt’s Skating Slang, Andrew Love’s Tree Project, and The Inline Planet's Year In Review- 2006.